VA SHORE: In Willis Wharf, a restaurant dedicated to Texas-style barbecue finds a home

Nov. 5, 2013

Bobby Seckers carries a beef brisket to his smoker in preparation for the night's dinner rush. Seckers is the pitmaster at Willis Co Barbeque, which is currently open on Fridays and Saturdays in Willis Wharf at the site of the former E.L. Willis restaurant.

Willis Co Barbeque pitmaster Bobby Seckers slices an order of beef brisket for a customer during a dinner rush at his restaurant. / Staff photos by Jay Diem

Judging by the people snaking out the front door Friday and Saturday nights since the restaurant’s Sept. 20 soft opening, people especially love to eat Texas-style barbecue.

“The food is amazing. It practically melts in your mouth, it’s so perfectly cooked,” said Dyllan Daughtrey, who was there for the first Sunday lunch opening.

Seckers wanted to bring an authentic Texas barbecue eatery to the Eastern Shore.

“I don’t think many people have experienced good Texas barbecue,” the Texas native said.

Anna’s son, Bobby Seckers, is the restaurant’s pitmaster, and learned the art of barbecue while staying with her other son Matt in Houston.

While there, he perfected cooking and seasoning techniques and visited pitmasters and barbecue joints throughout central Texas.

“We’re doing the real deal here,” he said.

Beef briskets, pork roasts, chicken and ribs are seasoned and slowly cooked in a large indoor pit, fired by oak and pecan wood, and housed in a metal smokehouse behind the main restaurant building.

“There’s no electricity used” for cooking, he said, and it takes up to 10 hours to perfectly roast a 12- to 14-pound brisket.

As six briskets were placed in the smoker around 9:30 a.m. to feed the Sept. 27 dinner crowd, Bobby Seckers said he would later add 100 pounds of pork, and 50-60 pounds of chicken.

“We expect to sell out,” he said.

Business has been brisk. The restaurant is open Fridays and Saturdays from 6 p.m. until the meat runs out. Sundays it opens at noon. The barbecue sometimes lasts only two and a half hours.

Meat can be purchased by the pound, as a plate with sides, or as “buns” — a term Texas barbecue joints use for sandwiches.

Sauce is an abomination to the pitmaster, though it is offered on the side.

“We don’t encourage sauce,” Bobby Seckers said with a polite smile.

“The meat is perfectly seasoned.”

Food is served “cafeteria style,” with meat carved to order, and homemade sides of “tater tot casserole,” macaroni and cheese, slaw, potato salad and pinto beans added to plates as hungry patrons make their way down the steadily advancing serving line.

(Page 2 of 2)

“I love how you can walk right in, order at the counter, and seat yourself anywhere. I prefer the porch,” said Daughtrey.

The 1850s building where barbecue is sliced, plated and served, also has seating for up to 49 customers at eclectic groupings of vintage chairs and tables.

It formerly housed a general store, a post office, E.L. Willis Restaurant, and most recently, Stella’s restaurant.

Friends and family donated labor and bartered services to help transform the building into what Bobby Seckers describes as “equal parts Eastern Shore and roadhouse.”